Uganda has one of the highest fertility rates in the world. This reflects the inability of parents to properly plan for their family’s size and birth spacing using modern family planning methods. With 30% of women in Uganda experiencing an unmet need for family planning and a total demand for family planning of 67%, there is tremendous opportunity to expand access to high-quality, affordable family planning options, especially at the community-level.
To address this, Living Goods is extending the reach of family planning counseling, education, and products to peri-urban and rural areas via our network of Community Health Workers (CHWs). CHWs are everyday women—trusted neighbors, church members, mothers, and peers— who are trained to provide health education and life-saving medicines and products to their neighbors’ doorsteps. We are now introducing a more comprehensive family planning package including the provision of expanded, affordable contraceptive options and counseling so that CHWs can provide mothers in their community with the full range of choices for planning their families. We aim to ensure that every woman has access to a trusted, knowledgeable health worker within her community to provide access to voluntary family planning.
